Roto Draft #3: Going 2-4 Like A Blade'd Up Thopter
At this point, I'm pretty clearly hooked on roto'ing as a format. My two favorite things about Magic are drafting and brewing constructed decks, and every Roto feels like a chance to do both things at the same time.
Actually, I guess there's a third thing - hanging out with people. The Rough Drafts server kinda feels like an LGS that's always open, which is something that I sincerely appreciate. I played Magic from 1994-2009, mostly paper, and that involved heading out to a store once a week (and possibly a PTQ on the weekends) and drafting with a circle of friends that I met through the game.
I quit for what I thought was for good. It only lasted 11 years. When COVID hit, I was alerted to the fact that M:tG Arena exists ("it's like MTGO, but good!"), and downloaded it on the day Ikoria came out, and have been re-hooked ever since.
That said, playing Arena-only, while living in a small town in the woods, and mainly living my life while everyone around me is sleeping - it's a solitary experience. I still enjoy the game, but in doing these Rotos the main thing that I'm realizing I've been missing has been Magic as a social experience.
Hell yeah.
...
On that note, I joined in my third roto draft, so it's time to write another one of these entries.
This time, we're playing with this cube: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/Thopter-Arena - the first time I'm trying to play the Roto format with a wildly different card pool from what I'm used to. This one has 100 ornithopters in it (as the only Creatures), and is basically made up of cards that allow you to build around having a large number of free 0/2 fliers in every deck.
Also, there are 8 people in this one, with only 35 rounds as opposed to the 45 that I'm used to. Much like with my last draft, I'm sure this will affect things but I have no idea how to strategize around it. I'm sure I'll figure it out as I go. Once again, I'm seated in the middle seats - spot #5 of 8.
The first thing I did when I signed up was to look over the cube and realize - there are a lot of cards I either forgot existed or have never seen in here. To be honest, looking over the list got me super hype - I think the reason that I enjoy brewing/drafting so much is that I look at deckbuilding like a puzzle and I enjoy the process of trying to solve it.
I quickly identified a few build-around cards - there are a lot of cool cards like Paradox Engine and Paradoxical Outcome and Mystic Forge and Elven Chorus that seem to allow for easy combo'ing off. There are multiple sweepers, meaning control was probably viable. And since Ornithopters are the only actual Creature cards in the cube, obviously there are tons of ways to make attacking with them good.
In other words, there are plenty of options.
Pick 1: Umezawa's Jitte
The cards that were taken from spots 1-4 were: Elven Chorus, Thoughtseize, Paradox Engine, Hardened Scales.
I thought about it for a little awhile, almost taking Paradoxical Outcome. But where I hesitated is that Elven Chorus and Paradox Engine taken ahead of me both felt like they implied going for a "big turn", which meant that combo was probably going to be contested.
So I decided to go with Jitte. It's a stupid powerful card, and it's extremely noncommittal - pretty much whatever deck I draft, Jitte will fit into it. Also, this card basically allows me to kill an enemy Ornithopter every time I get an attack in, which seems bonkers to me.
Picks 2 and 3: Mox Opal and Springleaf Drum
My bedtime came basically right before it got back to my turn, so I wanted to bank picks so that everyone wouldn't have to wait for me. Unfortunately, banking picks after only 1.5 rounds of data is really hard - this is the point in the draft where people typically carve out an archtype, and I don't want to do that if I don't know what the other people at the table are doing.
So I decided to continue delaying the decision and take two more cards that will slot into any deck: Mox Opal and Springleaf Drum (an old sentimental favorite card of mine from back in the day) - no matter what I end up doing, it's going to involve casting spells that aren't Ornithopther, and advancing my mana by a turn is never going to be a bad thing.
...
I woke up to the first three rounds of the draft looking like this, with Round 4 waiting on me. Scanning over the layout, I noticed a few things:
- The four players on my last had cards that were, respectively, UG, BG, RG, and WG. For the first time in a roto, green was the least likely color to provide me an open lane.
- I put Keith, Abzan, and Greg on combo decks that would try to win on one big turn, meaning that if I want a deck that goes off and wins in one big turn, I would be heavily contested.
- Oophies took three cards that implied RB sacrifice to me - granted, they only had red cards at that point, but Meltdown is board wipe, Chainsaw has a death trigger, and Goblin Bombardment is a sacrifice outlet - meaning that I suspected his plan was to grind opponents out rather than beat opponents down.
- With Paradox Engine and Meltdown in the two red decks, it didn't appear that anyone in red was playing to win the game quickly.
- The two white drafters had already basically declared their archtypes, with Ray firstpicking Hardened Scales (implying Selesnya +1/+1 counters) and Max taking three equipment-centric cards.
...
Pick 4: Tempered Steel
So with that, I decided to aim for a Boros aggro deck that tried to win the game straightforwardly by casting spells on curve and attacking. I started with Tempered Steel, with simple logic - it makes every Ornithopter on my board relevant for only 3 mana with no other hoops to jump through. I also picked it (and my next card) because I think it does a good job of telegraphing what kind of deck I'm going for.
Pick 5: Warleader's Call
Another enchantment that buffs my entire team. While it only provides +1/+1, I like that it provides a way to punch damage through in the event that the opponent has managed to stabilize the board. It's also an extremely "hey I'm Boros Aggro" card - this to me was relevant primarily as it pertained to Max, as it wasn't 100% clear to me yet what he's drafting - meaning now is the time to try and push him off of Boros, as my read is that his options are basically mono-W, RW, and UW, and I want to push him towards UW as much as I possibly can.
Pick 6: All That Glitters
Another card with a huge "damage done for mana spent" ratio. Yes, it leaves me open to a 2-for-1 if the opponent has removal for the creature that I put this one. But if they don't.. they're dead in a few turns.
Pick 7: Dowsing Device
This might have been a reach? But I feel like this card fits my plan really well - the +1/+0 and haste can add up if you have Tempered Steel/Warleader's Call, and once flipped it turns every Ornithopter into a potential threat.
...
At this point, scanning over the draft, a new game plan was formed. Specifically, I noticed that no one was taking aggressive red cards at all. With Ray playing an aggressive white deck and Max taking equipment payoffs, I made the executive decision to focus primarily on red while leaving white mostly alone.
The goals for my deck are simple: play lots of buffs (equipment and anthems) to make it so that any individual Ornithopter is a threat, and win quickly through combat. I don't have much available to me to disrupt an opponent combo'ing off - so the only solution is to kill them before they can do it.
...
Pick 8: Connecting the Dots
I think this card is broken in this format? It seems very easy to throw 6-8 cards under this in the early game for a mid-game one-sided Wheel of Fortune. I'm including it mainly as a way to not run out of gas against decks with sweepers.
Pick 9: Smelt
In this format, this card is an instant "destroy target creature" for R, with the added bonus of occasionally breaking a Colossus Hammer or Paradox Engine or some other build-around that's central to the strategy of my opponent's deck.
Pick 10: Weaponize the Monsters
Another anti-control card, the goal with this is to ensure that I have a game plan against decks that are trying to kill all of my creatures to stabilize. At worst, now all of my creatures are 2-mana shocks, which gives me a solid plan B in the event that attacking isn't going to work.
Pick 11: Sacred Foundry
This was straight-up a fear pick - Max had finally declared his intentions beyond white, and took Jetmir's Garden, presumably to fix his colors. Notably, he took it over Temple Garden, indicating (to me at least) an intention to start adding red cards to his deck. So I wanted to ensure that I got Sacred Foundry before it got snapped up - as long as I have it, any red or white fetchland becomes a R/W untapped dual. Whew.
Pick 12: Ghostfire Blade
This is a card that I knew from the beginning that I would want, and was fairly sure that I could get late. That said, given that it's a 1-mana artifact, I didn't want to risk someone else snapping it up, since it fits so incredibly well with what my deck is trying to do.
Pick 13: Arid Mesa
I was sleeping during the last few picks, so was a little bit late to start on the fetchland train. Thankfully, people left me the Arid Mesas (the one I want most, obviously), so I grabbed one for myself.
Pick 14: Scalding Tarn
Once again, there was a kinda funny but slightly awkward moment at this pick that arose due to banking. As I'm up late at night, I will often allow people to tell me their picks so that I can keep the draft moving along while most other people are sleeping. I've been requesting that people send me their picks in spoiler tags, so that I won't be influenced by what other people are doing.
When I went to look at what Max requested, he said "any two G or W fetchlands". And this put me in a weird position, because (a) I knew Max had Jetmir's Garden, and (b) I was fulfilling bank requests during my breaks at work on my phone (usually while eating/smoking/talking to people), meaning I didn't have a lot of time to actually look and see what had been taken.
At first, I was going to give him either Marsh Flats or Flooded Strands, since no one appeared to be in UW or BW, so no one would be bothered. But then I had to ask myself - is that just me using banking as an advantage? I knew he took Jetmir's Garden over Temple Garden, which to me implied at least a nonzero desire to snag a red card or two.
So, in the spirit of "what do I sincerely believe is what he wants?", I gave him Foothills and the second Arid Mesa, and then took Scalding Tarn for myself since it still fetches my Sacred Foundry. And then, somewhat hilariously, realized one hour later when I went on my next work break that he had also taken a Spara's Headquarters that I didn't noticed and that probably, Flooded Strands would have been fine there.
Ah well. I think I'll be fine.
Pick 15: Dreadmaw's Ire
With 2 fetches and a shockland, plus Mox Opal and Springleaf Drum, I decided that I'm fine on mana, so decided to take another removal spell. Dreadmaw's seems really good in this format - it's another one-mana spell, it has the realistic ability to 2-for-1 an opponent (winning combat and then breaking another artifact), and it's a feasible way to push the last points of damage through with trample.
...
At this point in the draft, I looked at the remainder of the cube and built my imaginary perfect deck consisting of what I had + the cards remaining in the cube. To my surprise, outside of Showdown of the Skalds there weren't any other white cards I was particularly interested in. Meanwhile, red was stuffed to the brim full of cards that fit an aggressive strategy, so I decided to mentally make the pivot into drafting mono-red. With two fetches + Sacred Foundry + Opal/Springleaf/Boomstick, I felt comfortable that I'd be able to splash white for three cards (Tempered Steel/Warleader's Call/All That Glitters) if I deemed it necessary.
That said, I felt fairly confident I could get enough cards to not splash. This, plus an extremely low mana curve, meant that I would be able to cheat a little bit on the number of lands I play in my deck, which I see as a good thing. Most other people in the pod are drafting decks that assemble some sort of engine, so the way I plan to win is to put them on as fast of a clock as possible.
Basically, from here on out I targeted cards that either (a) allow Ornithopters to deal damage to the opponent (either through combat or otherwise) or (b) help mitigate the risk of clunky hands / running out of gas, something this deck absolutely cannot afford to do.
...
Pick 16: Experimental Frenzy
From here on I took a small build-around card in Experimental Frenzy. In a world where I'm mono-red, I'm cutting the only two spells that cost 3+ mana - which means that Experimental Frenzy can theoretically let me play through my deck in a few turns.
While it's not an inherently beatdown card, I mainly took it to address my concern of: what if my opponent's strategy is to kill all of my Ornithopters? Notably, the two players on my right (Greg and Oophies) had multiple board-sweepers and card draw spells, which to me seemed like the biggest hole in my deck so far.
It's also a card that I was worried Abzan would poach from me, since his deck seemed similarly poised to abuse a card like Experimental Frenzy. I decided to grab it now, since it would be more contested than red beatdown cards.
Pick 17: Beamtown Beatstick
At this point, Max had started dipping into red for equipment payoffs - something I expected and was fine with, but also was cause for concern. So I decided to hurry up and snap up the Beatstick since it was a card I'd very much regret not having in the deck.
As readers of this blog might have gathered by now, I am obsessed with any card that ramps my board every turn while adding to the board. "Boomtown Beatstick" is basically the Lumbering Worldwagon / Overlord of the Hauntwoods of this format - I can't even remember what set it was in, but I remember it being my favorite common in that set by a mile and it being a card I would frequently and happily run multiples of.
Not to mention, the menace ability is quite relevant in my deck. A perfectly reasonable way for an opponent to deal with a Bonesplitter / Ghostfire Blade'd thopter is to just block it every turn, and draw enough cards to offset the loss. Making that creature eat up two Ornithopters per attack adds up really quickly.
Another fun fact: I have dyslexia for this card specifically - no matter how many times I read it I cannot remember the actual name of this card ever. I played (whatever format this was) before I really consumed any magic content / talked to anyone about the game, so cards would just kind of become whatever I referred to them as in my own brain. The name for the card in quotations above is literally what I called it throughout writing this whole thing, and I only realized that I wasn't even close on a double-check.
Picks 18-20: Demand Answers, Bitter Reunion, Faithless Looting
I wanted these three cards next to solve a problem that I think every deck in this format is at risk of - each deck consists of lands, Ornithopters, and spells that rely on Ornithopters to work. What happens if you draw too many cards from any one category, and not enough cards from another? Being limited to seeing one card per turn simply isn't going to cut it against a deck that's trying to draw 100 cards or generate infinite mana.
Assuming I run Experimental Frenzy, 4 lands in play is the absolute most that I would want. Any lands after that are dead draws. And some of my opponents are going to have artifact/enchantment removal, meaning I might get stuck in a situation with Ornithopters that don't do anything. So I wanted to make sure I had cheap ways to offset that risk.
Picks 21-22: Cavalcade of Calamity and Throne of the Bone-Pharoh
Two more cards that make each Ornithopter useful, with the added bonus of dealing damage even in the face of enemy Ornithopters that are there to block.
...
At this point, I felt fairly comfortable with my maindeck. After lands and Ornithopthers, there is only really room for like 16-20 spells, so I was now mainly interested in finding cards to sub in. What I was not comfortable with, however, was Abzan and Max poaching Untimely Malfunction and Showdown of the Skalds from me respectively.
I decided to get a little bit creative with things from here. Jeskai felt like an open market with no one taking Azoreus Cards and Oophies (who had taken lands to move into Grixis) was primarily UB and a focused control deck, so I wasn't worried about him wanting the same blue cards I did. Blue in general felt like the least targeted color in the pod, so why not dabble a little?
Specifically, I noted that Jeskai Ascendancy + Retraction Helix + Ornithopter + (Mox Opal or Springleaf Drum) is an infinite combo that kills in one shot. So I figured I'd grab cards that might feasibly work with that as a strategy, to possibly catch people off-guard against people who sideboarded against a beatdown deck.
...
Pick 23: Thundering Falls
Since the new plan involved splashing blue, I wanted to make sure I could get a land fetchable by Tarn/Mesa that produces blue mana. Plus, it's good to have a surveil land in the deck, just to make fetchlands useful in the mid/late game.
Of course, it would have been better to let them get an untapped source of blue. Which is why I audibly cursed out loud when Max took Hallowed Fountain - a card that I had not noticed was still in the pool - at his next pick.
Pick 24: Bonesplitter
The last card left in the pool that I wanted to put in the maindeck. This was a card I felt I could float for awhile, but we had hit the point where I was worried about someone else snagging it, so I took it here. It's a 1-drop that makes each Ornithopter worth +2 damage per turn, which at this point had become the metric by which I was evaluating cards.
My next priority was to shore up a little bit more mana fixing for the Jeskai build. Or at least, it would have been, had Greg not gotten a similar idea to me - he took the second Flooded Strand (which I intended to take next) and Teferi (which I was planning to take soon). Aaaaaaugh.
Picks 25-27: Frostcliff Siege, Jeskai Ascendancy, Retraction Helix
Frostcliff Siege fits the "plan A" of my deck - in a world where I play blue mana sources, I would want it in my deck. The main appeal of this card is the +1/+0, haste, trample mode - it's basically a substitute for Warleader's Call that also gives haste.
I then took the combo cards, motivated both by a desire to signal my intentions and a fear of getting more cards I was targeting taken from me.
PIcks 28-38: Ornithopter
This was where the run started for me. I didn't know the exact number of Ornithopters I intended to run, but 10 felt like the absolute minimum, so I grabbed them.
Humorously, I shot myself in the foot in this set of rounds. I had volunteered to bank for people in this set of rounds, and everyone's list was some variation of "grab Ornithophers for the next X rounds". Each Ornithopter has a unique number in the spreadsheet, and people had requested various lucky Ornithopter numbers, so I started with those. However, I then made the mistake of picking random numbers for each one after that.
This was fine at first, but after 50 or so Ornithopters had been taken, it became an annoying memory game where I would keep using random numbers until I found one that was still unclaimed. Oops. I did it to myself.
Pick 39: Gamble
This was a card that flew under my radar for most of the draft, until I started thinking about it. I remember playing this card way back in the day when Sneak Attack was in Standard (aka "Type 2"), and it was great. Yeah, sometimes you lose the card you tutor for, but most of the time you lose some card that's worse - all you gotta do is find some card that's worth it.
Specifically, I realized that the nuts hand for my deck is basically 2-3 thopters and a turn 2 Connecting the Dots. If I can land that, I will get to see 6-7 extra cards, which should be enough to win the game. Having the ability to tutor for it on turn 1 so I can cast it on turn 2 seemed more and more broken the more I thought about it.
And it doesn't have to be Connecting the Dots. Sometimes you have a 1-lander with a bunch of spells you can't cast - Gamble is great for that, too. Or hands that would be otherwise great but have no Ornithopters - tutoring for one in that spot is huge.
Picks 40-43: Spell Pierce, Chart a Course, Thoughtcast, Tempered in Solitude
At this point, I was fairly off the Jeskai strategy, but in a world where I decided to do it, I decided to grab a wonderful source of disruption in Spell Pierce (something I was amazed was still there) and some card draw in Chart a Course/Thoughtcast. Tempered in Solitude was taken with a simple idea in mind - in a matchup against a deck with multiple board sweepers, I can board in Tempered which allows me to see an extra card every turn.
In theory, I would switch from a "kill 'em dead" plan to a "draw your deck" one. Probably, I would never do it - but options never hurt.
Picks 44-45: Ornithopters
I didn't know the right number of Ornithopters for my deck but my guess was "10-12". So I took two more just in case ten wasn't enough of them.
...
This was my first build of the deck: https://sealeddeck.tech/45L6XwfQF6
I played a scrimmage with Last Abzan, which made me recognize some important things:
1. I have enough incidental mana fixing that I'm not really gaining an advantage by being mono-color, and the white cards all do the fundamental thing that the deck needs: allowing my Ornithopters to punch through an opponent's defenses.
2. Experimental Frenzy sucks in this deck. I drew it game 1 and never found a fourth mana, and then tapped out to cast it game 2 and it got disenchanted, contributing nothing.
3. 12 ornithopters feels like too many - if the opponent can deal with my other spells, they're dead draws.
4. Connecting the Dots and Drowsing Device are both awesome in this deck, having an army of Ornithopters completely changes how good those two cards are specifically.
This was the final build that I submitted: https://sealeddeck.tech/uaF5dxSuss
Round 1: Last Abzan (RG Paradox Engine combo)
Round 2: Jack (BG Terrasymbiosis midrange)
Round 3: Greg (UBx Paradoxical Outcome control/combo)
Round 4: Max (WRg Hammer Time aggro/combo)
Round 5: Keith (UG Ugin control)
Round 6: Oophies (BR Sacrifice control)
...
If you want to see some back-and-forth nailbiters, watch my matches vs. Abzan and Max,
If you want to see my deck doing what it's supposed to, watch my match against Jack and game 1 against Greg,
If you want to see the single least deserved game win I've ever had, watch game 2 against Greg.
If you want to see the flaws of this deck magnified tenfold, watch my matches against Keith and Oophies,
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So it didn't go great! These things happen.
I think the main lesson that I learned is that:
#1 - The deck that draws the better ratio of lands/spells/thopters will usually win. In other words, the format is high-variance.
#2 - The way to combat variance is to see a lot of cards.
#3 - In a format where every deck has 10-12 0-mana 0/2 blockers + all of your creatures are base 0-power, card advantage is a much better route to go than tempo.
I would say I intuitively understood rule #1, I just misunderstood how to apply it. My thought was - since so many people's decks are dependant on drawing the right spells in the right order, why not punish that? And I understood that #2 was important - hence Connect the Dots, Bitter Reunion, Demand Answers, Gamble, Looting (which should have been maindecked). Those helped - but it felt like every opponent I had had some card that was basically "draw a card every turn".
Which, I understood. My deck was trying to kill the opponent as quick as possible anyways, so the goal was for that not to matter. The problem was in my fundamentally underestimating the impact of rule #3. I was certainly right about the variance - there were some games where my deck popped off and I was able to win within 5-6 turns, which is a fairly fast clock. But there were games where the deck absolutely fizzled and couldn't do much of anything - if an opponent was able to deal with either all of my thopters or all of my buffs, I fell apart. And then there were a lot of games in the middle - where I started out strong and dealt 15-18 damage, only to watch helplessly as I can't get the last few points in.
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Deck Superstars:
Connecting the Dots - there were at least two games where I dropped 2-3 Ornithopters on turn 1 into CtD on turn 2 into draw 6 on turn 3. If I were doing another draft in this format I'd strongly consider first-picking it.
Dowsing Device - the most consistent card that actually killed people in this deck. Flipping it is very easy and once it's on the board, it makes every thopter a threat and is hard to remove. The ramping aspect of it wasn't irrelevant, either.
All That Glitters - of all the clocks in the deck, this was the one that delivered the most.
Mox Opal/Springleaf Drum - I still feel fairly happy with my decision to rate these highly. I completely botched how I drafted around them, but I'll get to that in a second. I did have lots of instances where I was able to cast out my entire hand by turn 3, and I usually won those games.
Duds:
Umezawa's Jitte - this card was something that rhymes with "jitte". I completely glossed over the fact that this card doesn't do anything unless you already have a buffed Ornithopter - equipping one on an 0/2 doesn't add any counters. So in order for this to do anything, I had to (a) have a thopter, (b) pay 2 mana to cast the Jitte, (c) have a way to pump that Thopter's power, (d) pay 2 mana to equip the Jitte, and then (e) hope I didn't get blown out by any piece of interaction.
Warleader's Call - this card just didn't really do all that much. +1/+1 is irrelevant in a world of all 0/2s, and the 1 damage per thopter doesn't do nearly enough given that my plan is to play them all out quickly.
Cavalcade Calamity - I did not realize at all when I built the deck that it is a total non-bo with Temporal Steel, so obviously I would only draw this when the latter was in play.
Weaponize the Monsters - a deck that struggles to maintain card advantage cannot be sacrificing Ornithopters / leaving mana up to do so.
...
So what have we learned?
Looking back on the draft, there's a lot that I would have changed with the gift of hindsight.
Regarding the deck I drafted - I shouldn't have wasted picks on the Jeskai stuff. I should have taken cards to facilitate go-tall (Embercleave and Temur Battle Rage being cards I sincerely regretting not having, given that they were there for the taking) but I didn't think the deck would need it. Or, simply put: given the choice between go-wide and go-tall, there's literally no reason to go wide because there are no actual ways for me to generate extra creatures. The only way through is over.
Also, I needed more interaction, somehow, from somewhere. I thought I could get by with Smelt (great!), Dreadmaw's Ire (meh), and Jitte (ugh), but I definitely wished I had more/better of it. This was a huge problem against Max specifically, who cheated out Colossus Hammer against me all three games.
But more importantly, I think I should have gone for the Jeskai Ascendancy deck from the jump. I thought I was being clever by trying to stay with a laser-focused mono-color beatdown deck, but, like.. I took two different five-color fixers with my first pick, both of which are combo pieces with Jeskai Ascendancy + Retraction Helix. I basically should have taken the combo, and then every piece of U or R or W card draw I could grab, along with some cheap interaction.
...
Dang, that was a lot of words. Hopefully it was fun to read - it was fun to write! I've blogged on and off throughout my lifetime, but for the last few years couldn't find anything interesting to ramble on about. These rotos go at the perfect pace (this draft probably took 3-4 weeks in total?) for me to just jot down a paragraph or two after every card I take. I like the idea of eventually having a big archive of these that I can go down memory lane with.
Thanks to Max for providing the cube (and I think andymangold for the original concept, assuming I'm filling in context clues correctly?). This was the first time I've ever tried drafting a high-synergy off-beat cube like this and I thought it was a really really fun puzzle to try to solve. As anyone reading this can probably tell.
In a nutshell - fun format, would draft again! I definitely took some lumps on my first foray into it, but that's all part of the process.
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